It has been known in the past for casinos to track the play of gamblers for the purposes of determining a basis for rewarding players with compensation, referred to in the industry as "comps." These comps to high stake players may be in the form of cash gifts, meals, free rooms or the like. Providing these comp rewards a player for playing at the casino, maintains the gambler's loyalty to the casino and is used to promote the casino.
In the past, the casinos typically only tracked players playing high stakes table games such as Baccarat and Blackjack. The casino would estimate the average wager per hand of the player, estimate the number of the hands or decisions per unit time, e.g. per hour and, knowing the amount of time spent by the gambler, could reasonably approximate the amount wagered by the player during a gaming session. Based upon this amount, they would provide the gambler with suitable comps to reward him/her for that level of play.
Recently casinos have begun to track players play of gaming machines such as slot machines, video keno, video poker and the like for purposes of rewarding players with comps and for promotional purposes. To track players of these machines, casinos have installed computer-based player tracking systems. While the specifics of these systems may vary, their operating principles are generally the same.
Players who wish to be tracked, voluntarily enter the system through a sign-up procedure. The player gives their name and address or the like to identify the player and the player is issued a player's card having a machine readable element. The player's identity and card number are entered into the computer and a file is opened for the player. At each machine there is disposed a card reader for reading the player's card. These card readers of the machines communicate with the tracking computer. Additionally, each machine is adapted to issue data to the processor indicative of the player's play, e.g. the amount of each wager.
Thus, a player to be tracked inserts their card into the card reader for the machine they are going to play. The reader issues data to the processor which finds the player's file and places it an open condition. As the player plays the machine, the machine issues data to accumulate the total amount wagered by the player or some portion or ratio thereof during play, the accumulated value assigned or allocated to the player account file as what is commonly known as player "points." When the player reaches certain levels of points in their file, they become eligible for certain comps.
The above procedure has been used for table games as well. The player playing a table game hands their identification card to a dealer or manager who swipes the card through a card reader or manually enters the player's card number to place the player's file in an open condition. During play, typically the floor manager or pit boss, estimates the average amount wagered per hand for the player. When the player desires to leave, the manager through a data input device inputs the average amount wagered per hand and swipes the player's card through the card reader or manually closes the file which notes the elapsed time of play and based upon that elapsed time and the average wager assigns comp points to the player's account file.
There are several drawbacks to the tracking system described above. One drawback is that the system requires the player to have their identification card available for reading by a card reader. The player may forget their card and hence they are awarded no points during play. Further, the player may simply forget to insert the card into the card reader, again losing the ability to accumulate points toward comps. Still further, the system can be subject to abuse. A single identification card can be passed around to different players to build up points for the individual player's account. There is no means to confirm whether or not the card being presented is actually the card of the person to whom it was issued. Still further, there is no means to allocate points to unidentified players who later decide that they want to be tracked. Unless the tracking system can read a card, no points are accrued for that player.
In a heretofore unrelated field, certain technologies have been developed directed to passive identification of persons. For example, in Maeno U.S. Pat. No. 5,283,644 issued Feb. 1, 1994, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference, a crime prevention monitor system is set forth which has a stored image data base of the facial images of persons authorized to have access to a particular area. When a person is sensed in this secure area, a camera obtains an image and compares that image to the stored data to confirm if the person is one of the authorized persons. If not, a signal is sent to authorities.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,012,522 issued Apr. 30, 1991 to Lambert, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference, an autonomous face recognition system is set forth which is adapted to locate and recognize human faces from a video scene. The acquired facial image is broken into separate windows and recognition is based upon a specific algorithm.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,432,864 issued Jul. 11, 1995 to Lu et al., the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference, an identification card system is disclosed where data representative of a person's facial image is stored on a magnetic strip on a card for verification of the identity of the person carrying the card.
Another facial feature which can provide positive identification of a person is the iris pattern of the eye. An example of such a system is disclosed in Matsushita, U.S. Pat. No. 5,901,238. Iris-pattern identification systems are commercially available from Sensor, Inc.
It would be highly desirable if a system and method could be devised which had the objects by which a player could be passively identified by certain inalterable facial features for purposes of providing data for player tracking, for allocation of previously acquired points to new players which were previously identified and to assist in spotting undesirables such as slot cheats.